If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.

What a great morning. I got started on chores early and by 9 was out in the garage. It doesn't get any better: low 80's, garage door up, rock and roll from the radio, all while wrenching on a 46-year old car. And I made good progress. The ignition wires and radiator hoses will arrive Monday, but apart from that and rebuilding the carb the engine compartment is done.

Late yesterday afternoon I took an hour or so to see if the body paint will come back to a decent level. I did the driver's side of the roof because it's a horizontal surface and most exposed to the weather. I started with a clay bar, then rubbing compound, then polishing compound, and finally paste wax - all by hand.
Kept thinking about a 12-year old learning karate.
Turned out pretty good! It doesn't shine like a contemporary paint job, which is called two-stage. With that type the first coats are the color and on top of that goes two or three clear coats that have a high sheen. Back in the day they used acrylic enamel paints that didn't go on as smoothly or shine as much, no matter how much they're buffed. So, given that this AE paint job is 30+ years old (it got a repaint after some body work in 1980) I was pleased with the results.

Puzzler: What do the city of Baton Rouge and the Palo Verde tree have in common?

I was at Best Buy to get a new printer and talked to one of the sales people about our cell phones. Turns out it's impossible to find out when your contract expires. Nowhere on our online account page does it give any clue. We got them and signed up with Verizon at Best Buy so I thought maybe they could look it up. Even he couldn't find that info. But he could tell me that we qualified for new phones in February and that typically happens two months before the contract ends.

I asked if there's any advantage to renewing our contract. "Not if you're happy with your phones." (We are.) It would just tie us up for another two years, the pricing for our plan hasn't dropped, and Verizon will just keep us at our current price on a month-to-month basis.

I also asked him how long it would be before having a smart phone was the only option. "Not much longer." He said each of the providers now carries only one or two dumb phones like ours. Cost for smart phone access? A: $30 per month per line.
If he's right, that's wrong. We don't want or need smart phones and resent getting bullied into $60 per month additional for smart phone service. Shouldn't the FCC or the FTC or the ABC or some govt. agency prevent this?

Scion is dropping the xB. Pam owns a collector car.

Chuck Colson is screaming. No one turns in their grave unless they were buried on a spit. But if he can read TIME magazine in heaven Chuck's going crazy. This from their obit on Mr. Colson:
"Charles Colson, who died on April 21 at 80, spent close to half his life atoning for sins."
Chuck would protest most vigorously. If anything is clear from his writings it's that he believed Christ atoned for his sins, pre- and post-Watergate, by his death on the cross and resurrection three days later. Christ's death was not a miscarriage of justice or the martyrdom of a religious leader. He went willingly to the cross in order to pay the penalty for Mr. Colson's sins ... and mine, (and yours) thereby providing atonement.
Colson explained that whatever good he did was a thoroughly inadequate expression of gratitude for the gift provided him by Christ's work on his behalf.

The writers at TIME may be fine journalists but they don't understand the central truth of the Christian faith.